A History of Target's Collector Section, from wall to aisle and back again

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Okay, hold on one quick moment before we jump into today's video. This one was recorded a while ago. For some reason, sometimes I record videos and they get bumped, and then they get bumped again because something hot happens in the industry and I don't like to put up too many videos in one week. And this one just kept getting bumped until I realized, oh, shoot, it's out of date. It was a video I did on the history of Target's collector wall, and recently Target unveiled an entire new collector section, which includes its Pokemon cards and its sports cards that they moved there from the front of the store, partially to deal with the fact that they are having a big scalper problem on the cards, so they figure they can put them someplace that they won't have to deal with that in front of the store, but that's neither here nor there. The point is the video you're about to watch is a history of Target's first attempt at a collector wall that was located behind electronics, how it was started, who it was started by, why it worked, and why it went away. So instead of looking at it as what's next for Hasbro, or Target's wall, which is what I started that video as, instead, well, this is more of a documentary on the history of Target's first attempt at doing a collector wall here on Spectra Creative. Roll it away, months ago, Scott, when this was recorded first. Hey guys, welcome back to Spectra Creative. I'm your host, Scott Toy Guru, Knightlick, toy maker, toy lover, toy designer, and I don't know, lots of stuff with toys, and books, and all sorts of things. I also have Post-it notes everywhere, but I don't make Post-it notes, I just use them. So, talking about what Target calls the collector spot, Walmart has one as well. We've seen this pop up in the last 10 years. It's essentially a secondary, or what the industry calls, alternative placement for action figures. Now, usually, alternative placement for action figures has to do with putting out holiday displays, like, oh, a few years ago, Target did a Father's Day display in the sort of, well, I guess, the male clothing area, where certain toys were also on this sort of pop-up little display, like some Hasbro Star Wars Black Series figures, you know, appealing to dad's love of, you know, toys in Star Wars, what can I say? Apparently, dads do like this. What can I say? I'm one of them. So, that's called alternative placement. You know, you see it especially a lot around Christmas, Thanksgiving, et cetera, et cetera, when toys pop up in, you know, clothing areas and on the runway, anywhere that's not the traditional toy aisle. So, getting a whole section in the back of electronics, and the Target section started off as 12 feet, which is more or less almost a full aisle, or at least, you know, half an aisle, you know, meaning an aisle has two different sides. You got the, you know, the light side and the dark side, and, no, you know, when you walk down an aisle, there's two sides. But the collector spot, excuse me, the Target was 12 feet, which, you know, is basically, yeah, one half of the aisle, one full side, which was everything from Funkos to NECA, and it just, I mean, it had a ton of stuff. So, how did we get this, and where, why has it shrunk? So, yeah, noticing my local Target, it's now down to four feet, which is pretty significant, you know, to paraphrase Seinfeld, shrinkage. So, the reason that we got this is the same reason, well, that stores like Walgreens used to carry exclusive Marvel Legends, Black Series, and different action figures. And they also had exclusive G.I. Joe and Transformers and Funkos. You know, you always thought, exclusive at Walgreens. Well, the reason is, is, about 10 years ago, two particular buyers, Steve Ann from Walgreens, and Jeffrey from Target, they were huge action figure fans, and they pushed for this stuff. And when Steve Ann left Walgreens, that's, like, it was, like, overnight, we saw all of the exclusives go away. He was, what's, what I often, even I talked about this back in my Mattel days, was the internal champion at Walgreens to carry collector product to drive foot traffic, which is what Walgreens is all about, because if you get collectors coming in to look for, you know, a Marvel Legends figure, or a Funko, or et cetera, et cetera, they might also pick up, you know, whatever else you will get at a pharmacy convenience store that Walgreens is. You know, whether it's foot cream, or a candy bar, or, you know, they sell cards and all sorts of necessities. So, that's the whole point. Yeah, you're driving foot traffic, just like Target, Toys R Us, Walmart, big box stores do with their exclusives. And Walmart, yeah, as soon as Steve left, that program disappeared overnight. And the same thing happened with Target. The buyer, Jeff, years ago, well, again, he's no longer the lead buyer there, and I think he's moved to a different department. Target likes to rotate people. But, when he was in charge of toys, he was the one who pushed that they should take a section of electronics and put more of the adult collector toys there. And, as he, when he moved to a different department, as it was to Steve, who left Walgreens, I forget where he went. He went someplace really good. It was a really good opportunity, even though I was so bummed that he left. Because I knew that would be the end of Walgreens, Marvel Legends. And, yeah, some people celebrate, well, yay, less toys, but, you know, now I don't have to, like, track those down at one store. No, you're missing the point. Now those SKUs aren't getting made. Those are just fewer toys. Now that we don't have Toys R Us, we don't get Toys R Us exclusives. You know, yes, you had to go to one store to get them, but now we're not getting them at all. I find it interesting that people seem to miss that one sometimes when they're, you know, bitter about exclusives or customized product. So, anyway, back to Target. So, he was also a big fan of Stranger Things, which is why you saw a huge Stranger Things, the premium end cap that Target has, the one that reaches out into the aisle that usually gets those giant cutouts. You know, that was, I think, for Stranger Things Season 3, right? Is that right? Is that the one that took place in the summer? And, yeah, I felt kind of like that was a little inappropriate to me in the kids' aisle. I mean, it kind of was. I mean, you know, there's people, you know, imploding and getting eaten by dogs and stuff like that, or demo dogs. It's a much more appropriate place to put in electronics, but him, you know, being such a huge Stranger Things fan, he pushed to get a feature end cap. And, yeah, you know, that's... In other words, so much of what we see in the toy aisle is often based on who is the manager of the toy aisle on a corporate level. And now that he's no longer there, you see the shrinking of the collector spot to the fact that it's just four feet, mostly Funko, with a few NECA figures. I'm still waiting for that NECA creature from the Black Lagoon to show up. I think they're down to the mummy. I saw Dracula there months ago. They seem to rotate. Which monster? But, yeah, that's basically, I think, something that we shouldn't take for granted because when you do get a toy buyer at a major retailer who is also a fan, then we get additional space. Now, the other factor, the really significant one, is I've mentioned that COVID really drove adult collectors. People who weren't adult collectors, just adults, were buying more toys because we wanted to feel safe and secure. So that's sort of the other reason, is more adults are even just buying the toys in the toy aisle. But the con is that losing that space that you have in the back, there's a lot of brands that are not appropriate, like Stranger Things, to sell in the regular aisle. So having that space, to me, it wasn't just about the additional aisle space for toys in general, but it was a place you could put toys that were not appropriate for that main aisle. Like, again, I know I'm picking on Stranger Things, but I didn't think it was appropriate to sell them in the kids' aisle. But it's great to sell them behind electronics, because, you know, a child isn't going to just wander over there by himself. If he is, the parent should be questioned. You know, but a kid is going to probably see the toy aisle while being with the parent making the, you know, the target loop. So that's why it's behind electronics. It's sort of like, you know, it's behind a wall of other stuff blocking a kid from seeing inappropriately themed toys, like horror monsters, you know, et cetera, et cetera, and more adult content. So there you go. It's a really interesting roller coaster, but there's good, bad, and ugly to having additional space. And I think we're seeing, as Target is shrinking theirs, Toys R Us no longer exists, and Walmart has also basically shrunk theirs to one small end cap. The age of having kind of the, what I would call the Tower Records toy selection sold at Target looks like it's winding down, which is sad. It's even sadder that we don't have Tower Records to shop in it for toys. Boy, was that a fun time. They always had great stuff. But there you go. It's all about, yeah, if it's not going to fit in the Target and Walmart aisle, having a place at retail is getting smaller and smaller for these brands. And in the end, that's never a good thing. So anyway, let me know what your thoughts are in the comments. I'm definitely doing a better job of hitting them in the new year. So thank you for that. Thank you for sharing the videos. And I will see you in the next one.